How Religion Shaped My Life

[dhalitsky]

I wanted to share with members how religion indirectly
shaped my life, though not in as direct and forceful
a way as it has shaped the lives of most (if not all
members here.)

On my father's side. his father was a Polish
Catholic who married a Russian Jewish woman around
1910 (?).  As a result, my father (and his siblings)
grew up in New York City as religious "half-breeds"
at a time in our history when religious identity was
very important.   So they just ignored the whole
issue.  My grandfather (the Polish Catholic) became
a doctor and he once told my father that the
closest he ever got to a priest was sobering the
priest up before Sunday Mass.  So as you can
see, religion was not taken too seriously on this
side of the family.

On my mother's side, her mother (my grandmother)
ran away from Poland in 1910 because her father
(my great-grandfather) was an extremely religious
Hasidic Jew. (For those of you who don't know,
Hasidism is a very orthodox sect of Judaism which
believe that the Lord cannot be praised or
worshipped thru "intellectual reason - this sect
arose in reaction against a 17th century
Jew named Sabbatai Levi who turned out to
be a real nut-case who led a lot of young Jews
astray.)

So anyway, my grandmother ran away from her
father because he was so religious that he
wouldn't carry the doorkey to his house when
he went to synagogue on Sabbath - because
this would be "working" on the Lord's day.  In-
stead, he would walk to synagogue dropping
the key and picking it up again, dropping it
and picking it up again - because then he
wouldn't be "working" by carrying it.  No kidding,
this is a TRUE story, not a parable.

My grandmother thought this was nonsense -
she wanted to run away to Israel and become
one of the young Zionists who were building
kibbutzes in what was then Palestine (now Isarel).
So she ran away to Marseilles in France where she
worked as a seamstress till a chance came to
go to Palestine.  There she joined a kibbutz
(a cooperative farm) until WWI broke out and
the Turks (who then ruled Palestine) joined
on the side of Germany against the US.  At that
point she emigrated to the US because she
was afraid of what the Turks would do to the
Jews in Palestine.  So her experience with
the "kibbutz-niks" in Palestine made her
irreligious in the usual sense, because these
kibbutzniks tended to be Socialists who
thought that religion was simply a means
of keeping people down (for example, one
member of her kibbutz was Ben Gurion, the
first prime minister of Israel and the leader
of the left-wing Labor Party for many years
before he died.)

So as you can see, religion wasn't taken seriously
on any side of the family.  Interestingly, my
father had a Christmas tree and gifts when
he was growing up because his mother (the
Russian Jew) and father (the Polish Catholic)
both felt that their children should learn
American customs.

This is the background which left me free of faith,
but also incapable of ever taking the leap of
faith, if you see what I mean.

More to follow in another posting about a friend
of mine from Pennsylvania who grew up in
a Protestant-Catholic house where religion
was taken VERY seriously.

 

[summer007]

David,   I wanted to say regarding the door-key. That when my Dad use to live in West L.A. his neighbor was a Rabbi with four sons and a wife and they frequently had him come over on the Sabboth/Shabot and turn the lights on for them, as that would of been considered working flicking the light-switch. This was some 20 plus years ago. I'm not sure if they were Hasidic or just Orthodox. Of course my Dad would preach to them and they probibly liked that, going right into Isaiah 53.

[dhalitsky]

summer007 -

Since you seem to know quite a bit about the Judaeo- side
of "Judeao-Christian", you may be interested in reading
about this guy named Sabbataai Zevi, who was a "false
Messiah" in the Jewish community several hundred
years ago in Europe.

His story is extremely relevant to the purpose of this
board, since this man gained many followed who were
then totally disillusioned when he converted to Islam
in order to save his own life.

See the web-site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbatai_Zvi

and in particular the paragraph at this site entitled
"Disillusionment"

Best regards
David

PS - msot people think of Jews as being never willing
to accept a Messiah, and certainly too clever to
accept a false one.  The story at the above URL indicates
that Jews can be duped and betrayed by cult leaders
as easily as any one else.  However, the Jews experience
with Sabbatai Zvei made them very leery, not only
of Messiahs, but also of "learned people".  In fact,
the Hasidic sect, which teaches that you can only
relate to God thru the heart and not the head,
probably arose as a reaction against what Sabbatai
Zvei had done to the Jewish community with all
his so called "learning".

As always, best regards
David